In the week after Dan Le Batard left ESPN, his show was the seventh most popular podcast on AppleESPN IMAGES
The content company formed by John Skipper and Dan Le Batard is starting to take shape. The duo will call the company Meadowlark Media, after one of the few species of birds that can sing while it flies. The firm will hire journalists and other sports media types to tell its stories. It will “emphasize a creator-centric point of view,” according to an early release. Skipper already has started talks with companies looking to carry “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz,” a deal that will help fund, in part, some of Meadowlark’s initial projects. Part of Skipper’s sales pitch is that in the week after Le Batard left ESPN, his show was the seventh most popular podcast on Apple across all categories. Skipper will make an appearance Thursday on Le Batard’s show, where he will talk about next steps. The conversation, which took about an hour, will be spread across multiple episodes. Le Batard is quoted in the release as saying, “We hear the term ‘free agency’ a lot, but our fans, as loyal and rabid as any in sports, just gave us the freedom to exert the agency. John Skipper is a visionary, an industry leader and also the most powerful person in sports across the decade when our show rocketed to national acclaim. I can’t wait to see what he builds, and what we build together. We’re very luck John is available to us. Our pirate ship has found itself an overqualified Skipper.”
